OT: Are you bullish or skeptical on Detroit's comeback?
I was in Detroit all of last week and it was encouraging to see neighborhoods doing well, neat restaurants, and construction. But honestly, the changes don't seem anywhere near as robust as needed to move the needle, especially if you've recently been to a Boston, Dallas, Denver, Portland, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Atlanta, Nashville, D.C., or Chicago.
Any of you encouraging your children to choose Detroit over an already turn-key coastal or Sun Belt city? If the Midwest is where a 20-something kid wants to be, how do you justify $1500 average rent in downtown Detroit when $1500 can put your kid in Lakeview or Wrigleyville Chicago? And that's before Detroit's sky-high rental and auto insurance. It's one thing if living in Detroit was a remarkable value for kids, but it's not at all.
Further, GM slashing headcount and looming Ford layoffs (up to 25,000) can't be good. I follow Charlie LeDuff's podcast (a great listen) and stay current with various Detroit news outlets. Seems corruption and practically nonexistent public services are ongoing issues. Cooking crime stats, hyper-aggressive parking & towing schemes prey on residents, same crooked politicians and consultants. Detroit has a slightly more polished facade but hasn't cleansed itself of unsavory old ways.
December 10th, 2018 at 3:09 PM ^
Detroit will not fully come back until they fix the school system. That is going to be a tough one.
December 10th, 2018 at 3:35 PM ^
Well the Lions still have a 1.8% chance of making the playoffs. (Cue the "Dumb and Dumber" line)
December 10th, 2018 at 3:39 PM ^
I always thought U of M should do its part to help Detroit and open a UM - Detroit campus with an evening version of the Ross School. Part of Detroit's problem is its reliance on manufacturing and its lack of a diversified services economy relative to Chicago. Having better academic options on hand could help retain a lot of talented services professionals that might otherwise pick Detroit but instead pick Chicago because they can go to Kellogg or Booth at night while working.
December 10th, 2018 at 3:44 PM ^
Detroit? No.
December 10th, 2018 at 3:51 PM ^
Cities thrive where a robust subway/public transportation system exists, like in NYC, DC, Chicago, SF, and others in the US. Detroit is a case study city where, back in the 1940s, it eschewed building out a subway/rail system to the 'burbs because of its identity ("Motor City!") and instead built a bunch of freeways. But given a choice, commuters decided they would rather work in the suburbs after "white flight" occurred in the '50s and '60s, and businesses and manufacturers complied by moving their offices and plants out there. The same thing happened in Los Angeles in the 1940s: the auto industry used front companies to successfully destroy LA's public transportation infrastructure (streetcars, etc.), and lobbied state government to replace it with an enormous network of freeways that paved over half of the LA Basin; and today those freeways are a gridlocked hell for commuters. But the difference between Detroit and LA over the last forty years is that LA was able to reinvent its economy away from industrial manufacturing to an "FTE" (finance, technology and electronics) based economy, which also happens to be where younger, highly educated people want to work and live. This article very well articulates the economic dichotomy that has developed in the US in my lifetime, including the political ramifications as FTE-based cities thrived and rust-belt cities declined:
December 10th, 2018 at 3:59 PM ^
Los Angeles is also sunny 300 days per year and you can freeze to death in Detroit, but minor detail.
December 10th, 2018 at 4:07 PM ^
Agreed. I live in Tampa where public transportation barely consists of Uber but people are flocking here like crazy due to weather and pretty beaches. Not to mention you can live here cheaper than metro Detroit for the most part.
December 10th, 2018 at 7:44 PM ^
Yeah, but Chicago's weather is as bad as Detroit's, yet a lot of neighborhoods inside the Chicago city limits are desirable and cosmopolitan.
December 10th, 2018 at 4:39 PM ^
Neither? It's not BACK, and might not ever be. There is plenty of room for improvement, and there is a long way to go until it's the best city it can be. That being said, the improvements have been vast, and it is definitely providing reason for optimism.
One great thing I think Detroit is doing is restoration work on it's beautiful old buildings. This article is a year and half old now, but it still rings true. There is a more current project list over at Curbed. Not to mention the 10 year plan for the Packard Plant. Add that to new projects like the building Gilbert is putting up on the Hudson site and the ongoing work around the District Detroit, I think Detroit can be a hub for both new and historical architecture.
At the end of the day, at least people are trying. Who are you to knock an unfinished product?
December 10th, 2018 at 5:12 PM ^
Yes, one thing the city has is some fantastic, historic architecture. I'm really happy that a lot of it is being repurposed.
December 10th, 2018 at 4:58 PM ^
I lived in the Detroit suburbs most of my life and now live in the Chicago suburbs. I've spent a lot of time in the downtown cores of both cities and there is a very stark difference that no one can deny. Chicago is a world-class city, yes, still with issues (schools, public safety), but still a very desirable place to be and can compare with any major city, other than weather.
Detroit is at best a mid-market city that saw 40+ years of continual decline. It cannot compete with mature cities in what it has to offer, but that doesn't mean it is without promise or merit, even at this stage of re-development.
The progress in the past 5-7 years there has been remarkable. I lot of good posts here about the areas that are being developed and the money flowing in. One thing I didn't yet read is the opportunity Detroit has for the "up and comers". It is a place of opportunity for business owners, especially when compared to mature cities like Chicago. Try opening a new restaurant in Chicago and get people to notice. In Detroit, you can do this and get front page news. Just an example.
If you are someone looking to be more of a creator or innovator, doing that in a place where ideas can turn to reality quickly is the benefit of a place like Detroit now. You can honestly feel like part of a turn-around, if that's what interests you. For those that just want to live, work and consume (btw, no judgement here as I would fall more into this category) then there are plenty of other options.
December 10th, 2018 at 5:44 PM ^
I don't think a suburbanite of Detroit and Chicago is qualified to opine on either.
December 10th, 2018 at 11:18 PM ^
Youre right, some suburban types never set foot in the city. I worked in both and lived in both, before kids. Parents and grandparents lived in Detroit and I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time growing up in the city . Just an opinion based on my perspective .
December 11th, 2018 at 6:09 PM ^
I do agree with you that Detroit is a place of immense opportunity for people interested in starting restaurants, bars, and artisan shops. I think Detroit needs to think less about being what it was in 1960 (a miniature Chicago, basically) and more about becoming a Midwestern Portland... sort of an Ann Arbor writ large, where the food and booze and quirks are the selling point more than any actual industry.
December 10th, 2018 at 5:34 PM ^
Wings will get there when they Yzerman back.
Lions, Tigers, Pistons......little chance.
December 10th, 2018 at 7:14 PM ^
I live mostly in a2 and part time in Detroit (Midtown). On the rental expense front think you are comparing apples to kumquats. There is no reason to pay downtown new construction rents in Detroit, and I don’t know what you can get for 1500 in Wrigleyville (a neighborhood I have also lived in).
Detroit has a long long way to come but the improvements are starting to spread to more diverse neighborhoods, and there is a lot going on. It bugs me when people come in and spend a half hour driving around and think they know the place.
December 11th, 2018 at 6:06 PM ^
on Chicago, it is a weird place because unlike New York (where you know everyone is paying $3000 for their shoebox), you can easily find surreal disparities within small areas. I have friends paying $1200 a month with a view of the lake in an Edgewater 2-bedroom and I have a friend living just south of them in a worse area of Uptown paying $1800 for a mediocre studio. There is no rhyme or reason to Chicago rents, some are infinitely superior to Detroit and others are NYC adjacent.
December 10th, 2018 at 7:57 PM ^
I am skeptical due to continued reliance on the Auto Industry. If you look at the numbers we manufacturer just as much stuff (relative to the size of the overall economy) in the US as we did in the 1950’s. Manufacturing’s share of real GDP has remained stable. Manufacturing share of nominal GDP and share of employment has fallen from 30% to 10%.
It takes way fewer people to manufacturer things and the cost of those things has grown slower then other cost in the economy. We are really efficient at making things. The result is fewer jobs and lower total payroll generated per item manufactured. If your economy is based heavily on manufacturing (like Detroit and much of Michigan) you are going to see declines in employment/income even if your volume grows in line with the overall economy.
Diversification into other businesses is critical for Detroit to continue to grow.
The other issue is what to do about people with lower levels of education and skills. This is a problem across the country (industrialized nations everywhere?) that has been magnified in areas where previous high levels of manufacturing employment supported middle class lifestyles. If you have a workable solution for this please take over one of our political parties and implement.
December 10th, 2018 at 8:14 PM ^
Green New Deal?
December 11th, 2018 at 3:19 PM ^
I moved to Detroit about two years ago due to my wife's job. I'd spent a little time downtown, but I wasn't all that excited about moving there. Now, I love it. The changes that have taken place over the last 2 years alone are crazy. It's an exciting place to be where seemingly every week there's new developments announced.
I've never felt unsafe in downtown/midtown/corktown. Like any big city, you have to be aware of your surroundings. It is pretty incredible to literally watch a city being reborn in front of your eyes. Grocery shopping is a bit of a pain but with delivery options and the limited supermarkets around town, it's not that bad.
Housing seems like it's lagging the demand. It can be tricky to find an apartment with parking. There's basically no inventory of homes/condos on the market for a reasonable price. But that will hopefully change as more stuff comes online.
I definitely want to stay down here a long time, but it could be tricky with kids, depending on the school situation if/when we have kids. There are so many cool projects I want to be around as the come to fruition (Hudson building, Monroe building, Ford's Corktown Campus, Brush Park, etc.).
One thing that gets lost when Detroit's comeback is discussed is just how far the city has to come back from. The city's bankruptcy was only 5 years ago! At the time, it was the largest municipal bankruptcy in the U.S. Vacant buildings all throughout downtown and the entire city.
It's no stretch to say the progress done in that short of time is incredible. It's also no stretch to say there's a long way to go for Detroit to emerge as a fully functional city. The progress in the downtown areas is slowly spreading to more and more neighborhoods but there's still so much work that needs to be done.
The one major thing holding me back from being 100% bullish on Detroit is the lack of industry diversification. A major hit to the American automotive industry could really cripple the city. I know they're working to diversify, but it's still super heavily reliant on automotive.
December 11th, 2018 at 5:04 PM ^
No 20-something kid wants to live in Detroit.
December 11th, 2018 at 6:11 PM ^
Work in Detroit, live in A2, have spent time in the past decade living in a few other spots in other countries. Have considered moving to Detroit, but it just isn't there yet and it will take too long to get there in any real way. I'm in my early 30s already and want to enjoy the few years I have left before kids come into the picture. My fiance and I apply to a job in Chicago every week or so just to see if we can make that happen.